Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and ViolenceHowever one looks at violence -- as an instrument of bureaucracy or ideology; as a product of racial, gender, or class antagonisms; or as the inevitable result of power politics -- it is an integral part of every social system and is one of the most pressing problems of our tortured century. In Raids on Human Consciousness Arthur Redding examines the contention that violence, be it the mass product of revolutionary uprising or a private sadomasochistic indulgence, may be taken to instill in those who commit it the capacity for radical change. Conscious that mainstream theory considers violence deviant, a departure from the normal equilibrium of social and aesthetic structures, while other critiques take it to be integral to any dynamic system, Redding begins with the anarchist inquiry into the relationship of violence to the imaginary representation of modern communities. He explores the "public images" of anarchism in literature and popular culture and emphasizes the diverse strategies by which modern writers encounter, derive, deflect, and manipulate fantasies of political violence. Redding recognizes that language fails when confronted with the extreme suffering of human bodies. Acknowledging that flesh is subject to war, torture, and everyday brutality -- violations to which language can never do justice -- he nonetheless finds it urgent to reclaim language on the far side of suffering. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 64
... imaginative concep- tions , mythical rather than materialist in form , and were inev- itably attractive to those who chose to explore society by means of the imagination . ( 148 ) While we can quibble about Holderness's naive ...
... imagination soared . I told myself stories . Like this one . ( Empire 148 ) I have said that the fetish " anchors " the masochist fantasy , en- trenches it as significant — but anchors aweigh : the fetish is not the foun- dation of a ...
... imagination by an unjust patri- archy . Bartky , despite her condemnation of liberalism , holds out nothing more than a somewhat insipid and equally utopian " sexuality of mutual respect " to the masochist ( 45 ) , without outlining ...
Contents
Satire Georges Sorel | 30 |
Anarchism and | 71 |
Violence and Modernism | 117 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Raids on Human Consciousness: Writing, Anarchism, and Violence Arthur F. Redding No preview available - 1998 |